More Algo Changes from Google - What Do They Mean?

Google has just released a report "detailing" 50 changes to the Google Algorithm that were made in March 2012.

As usual, this report briefly mentions each one and does not go out of its way to explain what the changes actually mean. You can read the full report here.

What We Think

Here are the changes with the potential to have the most impact on search results.

• Tweaks to handling of anchor text. [launch codename "PC"] "This month we turned off a classifier related to anchor text (the visible text appearing in links). Our experimental data suggested that other methods of anchor processing had greater success, so turning off this component made our scoring cleaner and more robust."
• Better interpretation and use of anchor text. "We’ve improved systems we use to interpret and use anchor text, and determine how relevant a given anchor might be for a given query and website."

Over the past few weeks, we've definitely already noticed this. Backlink anchor text, especially on 3rd party sites with little-to-no content relevance, seems to have lost some of its automatic magic. This has the potential to impact black-hat SEO companies who buy myriads of backlinks on blog networks in 3rd world countries, but probably will have little impact on natural backlinks on sites with relevant or related content. Google's spider is getting better at reading and understanding on-site content and knowing when a backlink is spam. While you may see some minor shifting in the SERPs, as long as you continue to post helpful, informative, relevant content and gather natural, context-related backlinks, your site will be fine. But if you are relying solely on spammy SEO activity (such as we are intentionally doing in our SEO experiment), your site may be in for some hurting!

• Improvements to processing for detection of site quality. [launch codename "Curlup"] "We’ve made some improvements to a longstanding system we have to detect site quality. This improvement allows us to get greater confidence in our classifications."

Similar to above, Google truly is getting better at understanding content. From the beginning, Google's mission has been to show the user what they are searching for, thus their emphasis on rewarding sites that have relevant, authoritative content with high placement in search results. If you are churning out "spiderfood" content stuffed with keywords for the sole purpose of ranking higher in the SEPRs, this Google update should have you nervous! But if you focus on writing high-quality, relevant content and being an authority in your space, this update should have you excited.

There are lots of other interesting and ambiguous updates in the update article, have fun!

The Main Takeaway

If you'll notice, I've used the words "relevant" and "authoritative" about 50 times. That is the main takeaway: if you want to do well in organic search, don't approach content creation from an SEO-only perspective but instead, write for the user. Create content that is actually helpful, and Google will reward you for it! The Upward Brand Interactions Search Team encourages good content and can help you create quality blog posts and articles, find interesting images and create helpful, funny or interesting videos to ensure a positive user experience for your site visitors. If you have any questions about the updates to the Google algorithm or about how we can help to make your site relevant and authoritative, give us a call or contact us today!